


The Sleeper Must Awaken

by GiantTribble



Category: Original Work, Sleeping Beauty (1959), Sleeping Beauty (Fairy Tale)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-29
Updated: 2013-10-29
Packaged: 2017-12-30 19:41:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1022631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GiantTribble/pseuds/GiantTribble
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An updated Sleeping Beauty for the space age.</p><p>Part 1 of Captain Von Heisenberg's Flight-Time Stories</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sleeper Must Awaken

            _Space was dark and silent and still. Stars shone in the distance, their cold, white light bathing the merchant vessel Candy Cane in a relaxing glow. The round, fat-bottomed vessel spun lazily in the Outer Rim, and its crew was becoming stir crazy._

_“Elements damn it, Angie, we’ve been stuck in this tin can for ages. The holovid’s down and we’ve just been stuck playing… card games. I don’t even know where Texas is and we’ve been playing Texas Hold ‘Em all day.” Latoya Vargas spun her creaky seat around and around, a sure sign of boredom anywhere in the galaxy._

_“Relax,” said Solange von Heisenberg, the captain of the Candy Cane. “I’ve got some old family yarns up my sleeve. Umm… I’m just looking for the notebook where they are because my grandma gave them to me.”_

_“Stories? Are you serious? Lawl, we’re not babies.”_

_“You want to be stuck playing card games until the tow truck comes along?”_

_“Aight, since there’s nothing better to do. I’ll bite.” Latoya rounded up the rest of the crew and they gathered around the bridge, muttering ‘this better be good’ and ‘hell, anything’s better than sitting on my ass doing nothing.’ Solange found the notebook just in time, a ragged old black and white tome in the ancient style._

_“All right everybody, the first story’s called…”_

 

THE SLEEPER MUST AWAKEN

3155 Anno Terrae.

              Once upon a time, on a green and leafy planet, there lived a retired oil magnate and his noblewoman wife. She was a princess, of a sort, but not in some feudal sense - she was part of an ancient Terran caste in charge of resource management. Oil, coal, natural gas, shialite and other extraterrestrial minerals - the Nouveau Families had risen from the swamps of Louisiana, in old America, to span a galaxy-wide distribution network. With great effort, the two middle-aged business veterans were able to have a daughter - Lady Aurora von Jackson, the second ennobled Jackson after her father.

                They invited the top people in their star system to Aurora's naming day, including the governors of all seven inhabited planets in their system to be her godmothers. The governor of Prima, her homeworld, gave her a guitar, so that she would never be without music. The second gave her a deed to a small patch of shale land, so that she may never be without a source of energy. The third gave her keys to a starship, that she may explore the galaxy. The fourth gave her a pistol, that she may defend herself in times of need. The fifth gave her a Central Library subscription, so that she may become educated. The sixth gave her a sealed vial of stem cells, so that she may always have health. Then Lady Fatima Von Callen, Lady Jackson's wicked cousin who was thought to have died in battle, was found to have been sitting in the place of Septima. Somebody had let her in, not knowing who she was.

                Fatima gave Aurora a curse, the dread information that matrilineal descendents of the Nouveau Families were not exempt from the draft. And that when she was 18 years old, she would go into battle against the Dokkar - and die. When Lady Jackson protested, Von Callen said that she was only a messenger, and that she meant the Jackson family no harm. Presently, Fatima walked out of the glass double doors of the Jackson mansion, never to be seen again.

                As she swept out of the house, a one-armed, black-clad figure like a moving shadow, a small, round woman huffed and puffed into the Jackson home. It was the seventh planetary governor. Having heard about the curse, she gave Aurora the gift of all legal defense against going into warfare, and the permanent protection of her own security force wherever Aurora went. She swore it to the five elements, and to the ancestors of the Nouveau Families, may peace be upon them unto the ages.

-          - -

“Come in, Delta One.”

“Delta One here. ‘Sup?” Commander Von Jackson held the comm close to her masked face. Water dripped from above – these tunnels on Kara Tav II were damp as shit with all the water generated by the domed colony above. Her back was damp from leaning on the wall. Wasteful bitches, these Dokkar –

“There is a sig-silent group coming down your way. Look for any of the side tunnels.”

“Right.” Signal silencers were a new innovation. Like individual cloaking devices, they kept bodies from being detected by heat or radar sensors. _Smart_ motherfuckers. She would analyze that tech after they got back to the base.

               Jackson crept along the side of the stone tunnel, taking care not to splash in the water that had slowly become ankle deep over the course of an afternoon. She slid into a side tunnel, found a dry ridge, and began to run. Foreign voices, the guttural sounds of an alien language could be heard in the distance. She ran, taking care to look around her. And then….

A beep, beep, beep…  No, it can’t be. She stopped to catch a breath, beginning to jog at a slower pace afterward. A blinding flash, a thundering noise.

               There was only darkness in this place, and warmth, and silence. And the Goddess said, let there be light, or how did that old myth go again? She saw a light in the distance. _Username._ Jackson.   _Password._ Fatima. _Wrong. Try again. Username._ Aury. _Password._ Fuckyou. _Wrong. Try again._ There were no eyes to close, in this place. And the blinding light seared her mind as she tried, over, and over, again to no avail. _Username._ Aurora. _Password._ Password? Something rose unbidden. Running through trees, running through damp hallways, running on a track, running in darkness. _She walks in beauty like the night…_ And most importantly, running away from her old life.

 _Password._ Janine. _Success. Now logging in to GalactiNet._ Janine?

               She was sitting in a warm, brocade-draped prison, flickering candles illuminating the stress she felt, sitting and just sitting doing nothing at all, waiting for Janine to finish doing her hair when all she wanted to do was run… And the flat iron caused her dark brown, curly hair to sizzle as it was straightened into submission, with the smell of burning hair floating heavenward like a horrible incense to the gods of gender roles.

“Oh, you are looking wonderful tonight, Aury! There are so many nice boys waiting to meet you.” Janine was in her ‘60s, heavyset, with freckles on her pale, broad face, carefully curled mouse brown hair, and the tiniest, squeakiest voice you’d ever heard.

“I’m sure.” Janine knew that Aurora didn’t want to be like other women in the Nouveau Families – primped and polished like a piece of meat on display, to be sold to the highest bidder.

“Honey, all you need to do is find the one for you. Then you can dress however you like. Why, you can even be a tomboy if you wanted to.”

But Aurora wanted to be a soldier. She looked up, out the great bay window of her room, at the brilliant, cold stars which she wanted to explore. She kept looking at the stars: from her autonomous coach, floating over long stretches of highway as a blur of Von Jackson blue and gold, catching glimpses of them from the dance floor as she entertained boorish boy after boorish boy, and at a side table, sipping vodka neat like an old space captain.

Who was Aury, or Aurora? Who was Janine? What were the blue and the gold for? And why the balls, and the floor-length gowns like she was some sort of subspace celebrity? All she knew was … yes. Go get it. And file names downloaded into her head like a shaman channeling spirits. She tunneled through vast walls of information, illuminated like she was flying a fighter jet through a canyon filled with numbers.

She aimed, fired. Shot. Caught, on a rod, reeled it in but the fish was a fighter. She opened. _Username._ Aurora. _Password._ Janine. Again? Confirm. Confirm. What was your mother’s maiden name? _Von Heisenberg…._ Again. What would you do if armies were coming in from the east, the south, and the west, but you had a base in the southeast corner you had to defend? What would _you_ do? Who was I?

Over bounds. Over bounds. What can _I_ do?

                She remembers being in the mall, a day off, a day away from the relentless marriage market that her mom and Janine thrust her into, over and over until she wanted to yell _Uncle_. _He_ was there again. _Do I have to marry within the Families? That’s like incest. It’s like marrying your own family._ It didn’t matter if the guy was black, white, Native American, East Asian, South Asian, purple, whatever, or kind of _mixie_ like herself. _What did mixie mean?_ All of the above…  All of the Families were related and it was like marrying your cousin, no matter what color he was. But in this star system, what else could you do? Commoners like her father had such a tough time. Such a tough time. They had to learn such a different way of life.

                And he was so handsome. Tall and lean, with cinnamon skin and long-lashed, deepest amber eyes. Like a makeup ad… His name was Daniel. An old Terran name, all the way here, almost to the edges of the D- (she couldn’t remember the rest) Star Empire. He was a security guard for now, the son of a merchant. She remembers taking him home and he thought it was a palace out of legend. She remembers him taking her home, and wondering how so many people could fit into such a small space. Daniel was enlisting. The R- something Star Navy.  Cinnamon coffee and the warmth of blankets, and the warmth of Dan’s skin against hers. And the slight frisson of fear that lent all those things some extra spice.

                “I’m coming with you. How can I enlist?” And Dan shook his head. “No, I’m serious. How do I enlist?”

                “Why would you give up all of this?” He motioned to the house, filled with stuff, surrounded by deep, viridian woods, redolent of nature. “Why would you give up all this for a cramped cabin on a starship, and the chance of death at any moment? I’m only doing this because I have no other choice. There’s no jobs here. All you guys…”

                “I can get you a job working in my family’s oil fields.”

                “You don’t understand. It’s not just about money. It’s also about freedom.”

                “Then have you ever thought…” She hesitated, trying to find words to the emotions that she had repressed all her life to be ‘mature’ and prepare for her ‘role’. “Have you ever thought it could be about freedom for me, too? I’m also trapped. Like you said, it’s not just about money.”

                Dan just laughed. 

                She remembers another day. Those words… “I have no other choice”, hit home. As she surfed through questions, through numbers, through strange ones… _Enemy vessels are closing in on you. What do you do? Your firepower is limited to 300 units, 50 of them torpedoes. The enemy vessels are Kara class, Dokhari class, and …._ How did she know these vessel grades? Was she Dokkar in origin or wasn’t she? Was _mixie_ a Dokkar word… Over bounds. Over bounds.

                And this went on. There was no day, there was no night, there were “day” and “night” but they were different from the regular ones on K…….. They would suffice, she thought. Days of dayglo numbers and constant bombardments of questions, nights of blessed warmth and darkness, like the time before birth. She fell in the night, or seemed to, like Alice into the rabbit hole, but then the womb-warmth cradled her, lulling her to sleep.

                She _remembers_ another day, or was it the ending of the day from yesterday? It seemed like she had two lives, like the _scin-laeca_ walkers of Terran legend, who travelled between dream and day worlds. Two lives, twisting and weaving like a thread upon itself to form a yarn. Green yarn, the emerald green of heart’s blood… _Was blood green?_ And then she found herself before a window on the bridge of a ship, assisting First Officer Lopez – _elements, I would totally hook up with her –_ when a shimmering radiance like a mushroom cloud took the place of the _USS Peter Thiel._ That ship she rode for… that ship that contained her love. _Daniel…_

                It was then that she knew the meaning of “I have no other choice”. Because she had no other choice. And she surfed over a crescent of information, a brilliant kinesthetic rendering of something that would otherwise overwhelm her, filtering, catching with a net, target and fire, casting the line and reeling it in…

                _Success. Success. Central Intelligence thanks you for your loyal service, Officer. Your duty is over. You may return to base._ Or, in the subspace programs, ‘we now return you to your regularly scheduled programming’.

                Her base was warmth, and darkness, and nothing else, and the memories that came flooding back. Those words that had been blanked out came rushing back. And she wished she had eyes to cry at the intensity of the onrush….

-          --

               Space was a brilliant dome of stars and cold blackness around Bryce’s tiny ship, an old fighter starjet from some military somewhere or another. He flew around the small, pale planet. Just one star system away, and it was another one of those mineral mining operations that the Family ran, so close to the Dokkar Neutral Zone. It took balls to set up this space. So that they didn’t get in our hair, and we didn’t get in theirs.

                Bryce made a close pass of the half-terraformed near-moon, feeling the rush of excitement as he cruised just meters away from mountains, a thrill like when he would go skiing with his dad back on his homeworld. _Dad…_ He pushed the memory away and let out a yelp as he dusted the tops of scraggly, air-deprived trees with his sleek tin can of a machine.

                _That wasn’t there before. Was it?_ He seemed to see some low buildings pass by. They looked abandoned, but it didn’t look like any sort of Republican or Family design. He had never landed on this planet before, though he knew it contained a small city that he’d regarded as a backwater. What did they call it again/ Something with a K. The locals called it Black Mountain. Usually he wouldn’t give a shit about some ancient ruins or alien whatever, but Bryce was low on cash. Maybe there were some artifacts there he could sell on the ‘net. Who knows…

                “Hey, how’s it going? I’d like a beer.” The bartender, an older, stocky man, scowled at his handsome, olive-skinned guest. He poured Bryce the palest, weakest brew he could find.

                “Haven’t seen you in these parts before. Where are you from?”

                “I’m Bryce Mansur, and I’m from Diamante. Hey, we’re neighbors! I’m loving this world already.” He took deep breaths of the thin air, barely enough millibars to sustain life without a mask.

                “That so?” He knew that the young stranger had some kind of motive. Probably another young buck trying to do a little natural gas mining. “So, Mansur, are you into mining or something?”

                “Naw. Just taking in the culture. The natural scenery and… Say, I saw a bunch of ruins right outside of town. They look ancient. I was wondering who I could ask to see if I could find some antiques in there, maybe sell them to a museum or something, what do you say?”

                The old man gave him a cold stare.

                “You don’t want to go to that place.”

                “Why? History’s important.”

                “Hah, there’s probably a princess inside that abandoned castle. But it’s an enemy castle.” He was deflecting with bullshit.

                “No. Look, I’ve got my kit in the ship. Archaeological scanners and all that. It’s kind of a serious hobby for me. Cyber security hasn’t worked out for me since the war. No contracts or anything like that.”

                “You a veteran?” The old man suddenly regarded Bryce with a little more respect.

                “Contractor.”

                “That’s a fuckin’ Dokkar base right there. I saw them take dozens of POWs into that compound back in the ‘70s. Never saw them come out. They were probably doing some sort of Nazi experiments over there. The local hill boys think it’s some sort of haunted castle and that they’re gonna be eaten by zombies. It’s your life on the line. Go for it. Good riddance.”

                “Thanks.” Bryce was more excited now. A Dokkar base? You know how much exotica would be in there, how much tech? Even after over 20 years, the Dokkar Empire was still more advanced than anyone in the galaxy except for the Lumiel, and those people were notoriously tight-lipped when Terran descendents were around. His life might be on the line, but he would come out a rich man. He had nothing to fear from the Dokkar that hadn’t been done to him already. _Dad…_

                Bryce rented a hovercar and drove into the forest, the GPS locating the mysterious spot. He saw the low building, grown over with trees and ivy and scraggly plants. It hadn’t been touched since it was used.

                20 years ago… Bryce’s father, Lord Daniel von Mansur, wasn’t part of the Republicans. But he’d worked for Darkwater, a mercenary corps. The Mansurs were a lesser house of baronets, the lowest you could go while still being part of the Nouveau Families, now known as the Nouveau Corporation. They embraced being professional fighters, when other Family scorned warfare. They did the dirty work of major houses such as the von Heisenbergs. As Dad said, _always short what's popular. It's the best hedge..._

                Bryce remembers his father kissing him goodbye that morning. Then, at the stroke of midnight on his homeworld, the newscast came through. There had been an attack at Orion. His father’s entire fleet was blown to bits. There was no way the Dokkar could’ve known, and Bryce had made it his life’s work to find out which Republican insider had betrayed them. But no luck. No unauthorized entry.

              No extant Republican officer had provided his or her login, passwords, codes. There had been a few authorized entries, but they had been recorded as flukes because the logins were that of people who were killed in action. There was no way the Dokkar could’ve gotten them off POWs – they were embedded in the consciousness, so deep that they would die before giving them up to whatever advanced brain scan they had. It had to have been a live traitor.  

              Bryce grew up to go into net security as a government contractor for the Republic. But now, a live Dokkar base? He burned off the ivy and branches with his blaster set on low – and a layer of ice below that, melting and pouring onto his head, soaking his already sweat-soaked hair and his thin parka, all the way down to his thermals. He found a door and blasted it open.

             He turned on a flashlight, found a few things plugged into the wall and plugged them into his backpack’s powerpacks instead. Bryce had maybe a dozen powerpacks on him; he could dig in and explore. Hey, this wasn’t really in the neutral zone, but a hair’s breadth on the Republican side, so he could play around to his heart’s content without inviting legal trouble. Lights came on, then a few computers. He switched plugs to powerpacks as he went along, lighting the way as the old base – research station? – came to life.

And then, as he made his way down the hall, he saw the tanks. There had been people inside them. Corpses, swollen and purpled. _Disgusting… They had been keeping people alive for experiments. Just like a Dokkar would._ Dead. Every one of them. Until he got to one with a barely flickering light at the base, and transferred a couple of its plugs, one at a time, to a powerpack. _Alive? Oh my elements._

He looked up, and saw her sleeping as if in a bed of glowing water, naked, sylph-like, her dark mermaid hair around her fine-featured face like a halo. She was not purple, although the readings indicated near-fatal concentrations of urea and other wastes in the tank. Even through the golden haze, she looked like she was sleeping. He would have put her age at 21, far too young to have been alive when this station was operational. _A vat-grown clone?_ He carefully ran the filtration processes, plugging two powerpacks into her tank.

All around Bryce, the station began to come to life. Small robots, like cylinders with rabbit ears, rolled around, running imaginary errands. Computer screens turned themselves on. And the water before him, around the girl, began to run clear.

From clear, changing to fresh, changing to pale blue. And then, _heavens help me,_ the water began to drain away as the tank lowered to a prone position. And then the glass slid down, down to the control panel.

There was no more warmth, no more darkness. The light around her seemed too bright, as Aurora opened her eyes. _Eyes?_ Light, light, and heat. Colors. Shapes. She was unaccustomed to seeing. She had just been born.

“I am a friend. Not a Dokkar. Not an enemy.” The shape before her began to move and she recognized it as a human.

“I am a friend.” She could barely speak, the words came out in a slur. “State your name and rank.”

“No rank. Lord Bryce Saladin von Mansur, contractor of the Republican Armed Forces.” He waited for her. _Your move, Aury._

“I am Commander Aurora von Jackson, of house Heisenberg. At your service.” Her hand instinctively snapped to a salute at the statement ‘Lord’. Her years in the service caused her to forget that she was also Family – as much as she wanted to deny it. Bryce found a blanket, an oxy-concentration mask and a Dokkar uniform, and placed them on one side of the tank. She suddenly realized that she was unclothed, and quickly dressed. The uniform was a little too big, but at least it was something. “Where are my men?”

“At home. The war is over.”

“What year is this?”

“3195….”

“No. You’re fucking with me, probably a Dokkar under that mask. The hell is going on?”

“You seem like you could use a meal. We could go to a burger joint?”

Shit. She was trapped with this stranger, and starving.

“Sure. I’m game. The worst thing that could happen is that I’ll find out you’re the Big Bad Wolf, or a Dokkar, and you’ll eat me. There’s nothing left for me in this world anyway.”

As they left the warm space of the research station, Aurora and Bryce walked toward the setting twin suns, the snow brilliant with their rose-hued glow. Aurora didn’t know where she was going, but she knew it couldn’t be any worse than what she’d seen. Bryce didn’t know who Aurora was, or what he was getting himself into, but it couldn’t be any worse than what he’d gone through. The sun set quickly, revealing the brilliance of a shimmering, star-filled sky as the tiny ship flew toward one of those pin-pricks of light.

 

 


End file.
